Shades of Grey
by almostfabulousx3
Summary: Jonas meets someone who could ultimately change his fate or some of it, at least. This is kicks in about threefourths into the book. R&R?
1. un

When he entered the room that day, he knew he'd be turned away.

It frightened him when it first happened, since he had always known the Giver as a kind and understanding man. A harsh tone was nearly never used with his voice. But still, it seemed pain penetrated everything in its path, even able to get under the skin of the old man. But Jonas began getting accustomed to it, since the rejection was becoming more and more frequent. It almost got to the point that he barely had to open the door to the Annex before knowing that he was not wanted that day.

And today, he was right. Standing by the river was a dark haired, pale eyed character, staring into the clear water and wondering how many hues away his eyes were from the crystalline water running quietly on its route.

That's right. I mentioned color. Jonas was now the only one in his entire community who even acknowledged the existence of color. That he knew of, at least. I only say that because the girl, almost thirteen, as Jonas was, rooted not 10 feet away, stared at the boy intently.

She knew she hadn't been noticed yet, and pondered what she should do. She had been undetected by the community members for a while now, but something within the girl made her want to say something. Or maybe it was something about the boy that caused the impulse.

Unable to stop herself, she piped up at a whim. "Beautiful day out, isn't it?" She said, aiming her line of sight at the sky. Grinning, she turned back to the boy, placing her hands on her hips.

Jonas, who had indeed not noticed his companion until she spoke, looked up in surprise and slight annoyance that someone had broken his train of thought. "Yeah." He said indifferently, "It's fantastic."

Her conscious told her to press the subject. "Funny how it's always like this, isn't it? Wonder why you g- _we_" She seemed to have stopped in the middle of her sentence, correcting herself before continuing, "Switched to Climate Control. It's horrid, really."

It was odd for anyone in the community to question the procedures and decisions of the authorities, but Jonas hadn't caught the full meaning of her words yet. "Yeah," he repeated again, "But it's nice to always have the sky this blue-" He, much like the girl, ceased in mid-sentence, knowing he made a mistake, "…berry. Like. Blueberry like." He finished, thinking quickly and combining his thoughts.

The girl's face screwed up in confusion. Shaking her head, she pointed heaven-ward again. "Nah. Blueberries are too dark of a shade to match the sky. Blueberries are more… eh… midnight blue and the sky's more of a cerulean."

Jonas took awhile to reply, her words processing slower than usual.

"Err. I have no idea what you're talking about."

Much like the procedures of memory transmitting, the concept of color, and the fact that he could discuss anything with anyone, Jonas had become accustomed to lying as well. But still, he was desperate for someone to talk to during times like these, and covered quickly, "But I think I may have an inkling." As soon as he saw the look of defeat on the girl's face.

Never before had the two crossed paths, despite the fact that she had been in the community for approximately a year now. Honestly, no one who resided in this community had ever seen the girl before. It was now that he decided to fully look at the girl. Straight, just past shoulder length dark chocolate brown hair was shorted and made into a different style than the other girls in the community. A heart-shaped face bore features that didn't resemble any of the other females Jonas was used to seeing. Young ladies in the community often looked childish and innocent, no matter their age. But this one had more classic features, one that caused depth and confusion, much like her eyes. Her eyes were pale, too.

After a couple months of training and receiving the ability to see color, Jonas had begun checking himself out in mirrors. Not egotistically, of course, though a boy like Jonas could be considered good looking: chiseled face with a mess of jet-fuel black hair and light blue eyes were set as his trademark. No one else in his community that he had seen had these characteristics- at the same time, at least. Asher, for example, had equally black hair, but like many others, his eyes bore a dark brown. And though Fiona's hair stood out- to him, at least, since most others didn't have such an extravagant hair color- she still had pupils of cocoa. Jonas hadn't failed to notice that the Giver and Gabriel had clear blue eyes as well, and though he didn't know what color the ex-Receiver-of-Memory's hair was before white took over, was nearly certain it hadn't been a shade as dark as his. And, noting the small tuffs of hair Gabe had recently been sprouting, his "little brother" was a blond.

But while the girl standing across from him had light eyes, they were not blue. Her irises were a light brown, almost as light as toast. Or was it like sand? Before he could come up with more shades of cow brown to describe her eye color, his gaze wandered downward at her body.

Not that way, darling. Get your head out of the gutter.

Her clothing was much different from those of the uniform of the community. Petite frame donned in a white shirt, black zip-up jacket, and denim pants, Jonas's eyes narrowed to slits, stepping back in suspicion.

"You're not from here." He said, more of a statement than a question.

The girl just laughed, "I'm glad we've established that fact."


	2. deux

**Disclaimer:** Yeah, I didn't put one on the last chapter. Forgot to and now I'm way too lazy to go back and change it. The only character that belongs to me is Lorelei. The rest goes to Lois Lowry.

It was a blessing for the Giver to be in a much better mood the next day. If not, Jonas wasn't sure what he would have done.

It was a pain to get the girl past the receptionist, of course, since when he presented himself that day, the lady looked at him as if he had grown another head. She eyed Jonas's companion with a gleam in her eye that suggested that if she made even one move, she'd get her head blown off.

"Err- she's an experiment. With my memories, you see?" Jonas lied, knowing fully well that memories didn't cause human projections. But it wasn't the secretary's place to argue with the Receiver-in-training. Nodding, she pressed the button that unlocked the door, never taking her eyes off the girl.

"You're 30 seconds late, Jon-" The Giver cut himself off when he realized that Jonas was not alone.

"I know. Sorry. I had a little trouble getting her past the lady out there." Jonas gestured at the girl next to him.

The eldest of the three stood silent, scanning the girl up and down, waiting for Jonas to continue, despite the fact that Jonas had nothing else to say.

"Okaaaay." The girl looked from the boy adjacent to her to the old man, back and forth. It was practically silently agreed that she was the one who would speak next. She cleared her throat, knowing that neither of them knew why she was there or even who she was.

Yesterday, she had taken the liberty of taking off into the forest again, being stopped only once by Jonas. "Where are you going?" He had asked her.

"Uh- into the forest?" She pointed up at the clock in the Central Plaza that displayed the time to everybody. "Most of your friends' training will be over soon today, and I can't be seen." As if that explained everything, she disappeared into the shrubbery.

She knew who Jonas was from the Ceremony, as well as the Receiver of Memory, the council of Elders, etcetera. She had caught on quickly within the time she had been here. "I'm Lorelei Tress." She started slowly, looking at the both of them.

"Loreleitress?" Jonas repeated. "That's a long name. I've never heard of it, either."

"Err- well, it's two names." She explained, narrowing her eyes and wondering why he hadn't realized that.

"You have two names?" He asked, perplexed.

"People in this community don't have a first and last name, Lorelei." Came the Giver's voice, understanding what she meant.

"No first and last-" Lorelei stopped, thinking over this fact. This community was certainly much more different than the one she had grown up in. She shook her head, as if that would rid her head of the confusion. "Whatever. I've been here for about a year now…" Her voice trailed, her eyes gazing sheepishly at the two before her.

"How'd you get here?" The Giver asked, motioning for her to sit down in the chair behind her.

She turned to see where the elder was pointing and nodded, backing up and flopping herself in the seat. "Stowed away on the jet." She shrugged, "It was forced by your Elders to land in the clearing in the forest."

"That's right," The Giver recalled, nodding, "That's what I told them to do. To land the jet instead of shooting it down."

"Thank goodness you didn't." Sighed Lorelei gratefully, "I fled to get away, not to die. Anyways, when you guys were dragging the pilot off, I just got out and ran off."

The Giver contemplated this for a moment, "But how did you get on the plane? Did the pilot know you were there?"

Lorelei shook her head, "The plan goes into detail, none of which I feel like elaborating on. Just know that it was one heck of an idea to drag my sorry butt on there. The pilot was clueless the entire time."

It stuck her now that these two were the only people she would ever tell her story to, but they were members in this community that could easily turn her in. Where would she go then? What would they do to her?

The Giver seemed to have read her mind. "Don't worry, Lorelei. We're not going to say anything. I'm the ex-Receiver of Memories-"

"Yes, I know. I heard at the Ceremony."

He only raised an eyebrow at her, as if to tell her that she was to explain this later. "But you may call me the Giver. And this is-"

"Jonas. I heard. You know. At the Ceremony."

Jonas was nearly relieved to finally be included in the conversation some way or another. From what he had perceived, she had arrived in the jet that had frightened him when he was still an Eleven, almost a Twelve last November. She had been out and about ever since, and had known the two of them before they knew about her.

"Yeah. I attended the Ceremony, settling myself somewhere in the back. I was surprised that no one turned their attention towards me, especially since I look so different." Lorelei nodded at her clothing, then to Jonas's. "You guys look weird." But then she gave a laugh, "Or maybe it's me who's a freak in this community."


	3. trois

**Disclaimer:** If I were Lois Lowry, I wouldn't submit my writing here, darling.

I know these first few chapters aren't spectacular but I promise they'll get better.

…Hopefully.

"I know my clothing's a little outdated, but my community was formed when this stuff was in style. I guess they never got around to changing it." She nodded at the unspoken question, "Yeah, my community's pretty old."

"It's not this uptight, either." She mused, looking around the room in fear as if it was the community. "I've seen some pretty stupid stuff here. I mean, what's up with this whole 'I apologize' and 'I accept your apology' thing? If it were me, I would have just punched their face out." To illustrate her point, she forced her fist into her open palm.

"This community and mine are practically opposites. It's like the whole Devil and Angel deal. Yours is the angel, mine is the devil." She eyed the room again. "There are rules, sure. But they're much more general. Like-" Lorelei paused, trying to think of an example. "Like 'you've got to play fair.' It's a wonder why our Council members don't realize that we don't share a universal meaning for 'fair.'" She shook her head again, knowing that she was describing more than she had to.

"But- uh- I'll leave now, since the two of you are looking at me weird."

Lorelei twitched before spinning around on her ankle.

"But you can see color!" Blurted out Jonas.

She turned again. "Yeah, I can. What's the deal?"

"Oh wow," murmured the Giver, looking over the teen again, "Take your shirt off, will you?"

Alarmed at his command, Lorelei instinctively hugged herself with both arms. Even Jonas was surprised at what the Giver had said, but the man cleared up his instructions, "I just want to try something. Don't worry."

Skeptical still, Lorelei removed her jacket and pulled her shirt over her head, having an undershirt inside. Jonas, though experiencing something like this in his Stirrings, felt himself flushing and turned away from the girl.

"Lie face down on that couch." The Giver said, pointing at the velvet upholstered piece of furniture.

Still wondering where this was going, Lorelei obeyed. Seconds later, she felt hands of the Giver on her back. By this time, Jonas had turned back around.

"Giver!" He exclaimed, "Can you do that? She's not the Receiver-in-training!" He protested, watching the elder's familiar form of transmitting memory. But a look of shock on the Giver's face made one similar go across Jonas's too. Immediately after his short tantrum, Jonas quieted down.

Peeking open one eye- for she had closed them in fear of what was to come- Lorelei broke the short silence with a bewildered, "What?"

"Err…" The Giver's expression faltered, not quite sure how to explain it. "I tried to give you a memory of a rainbow. But it didn't work."

Lorelei sat up, though grabbing her jacket from the arm of the chair and draping it across the front of her body. "You tried to _give _me a memory of a rainbow?" She blinked before breaking out in a fit of laughter. "You can't _give_ someone a memory!" Lorelei smiled, but the grin faded quickly when she realized how tense the other two were.

"But- but-" Jonas was left wordless. The only thing he left to express his emotions was the finger he was pointing at the girl.

"Do you know what a rainbow is?" Asked the Giver quietly, as if he was testing out a theory he came up with.

Lorelei found this question odd and hesitated before answering, as if her answer would change her companions' opinions about her; though she wasn't quite sure if that would be a good or a bad thing. "Of course I do."


	4. quatre

**Disclaimer:** …Do I really have to go into this?

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The Giver tried to transfer memories like kittens playing with a ball of yarn and sleeping in the middle of the day. At one point, he was so confused that he resorted to painful memories like watching a loved one die or being wrongly accused for something. The situation with the painful memories was worse than the pleasure-filled ones.

With the rest of his strength, the Giver pulled forth the memory of swimming in a deep crevice in the ocean. It went though.

"What was that?" Lorelei asked, eyes wide, "looked like the bottom of the deepest ocean on earth, if you asked me."

Suddenly, an idea hit Jonas. "Lorelei, how many of those memories before the one of the ocean have you experienced?"

The girl winced, "All of them."

Those three words solved the mystery.

"So… you can't receive memories that you already know of?" Jonas tried.

The Giver shook his head, "No, you can. But you just can't receive memories of something you've already experienced. You see," He explained, sitting down next to Lorelei, who had sat up from her lying position. "Memories that you receive are memories you can loose. We learned that ten years ago." For a moment, Lorelei thought the man shuddered, but decided it was only her imagination.

"Yes, memories that are transferred to someone can be lost, unless the memory transferred was one made by the transferor." The Giver realized the complexity of the web of words, but pressed on anyway, "You can never loose a memory once you make it, even if you transfer it. But you can't receive any memories of something you've already experienced unless you make more."

It was possibly the oddest concept in the world. But it worked.

…

"You should have gone with her."

These words snapped Jonas out of his reverie. Turning around, he caught a glimpse of Lorelei leaning casually against the trunk of a tree.

He shook his head at her comment, "No, I shouldn't have. And you don't have to hide anymore."

His second sentence rang true. Everything that made her different from everyone else in his community, save for her eyes and her hair, which was slightly shorter than the other girls who had been growing it back out since their first haircut when they became Tens. Her outlandish clothing had been replaced with the customary tunic, which was probably a size too big for her. But the bagginess looked alright on her, Jonas thought, since the size difference only made her petite body look even skinner. The trousers fit her fine, and Lorelei did, indeed, blend in almost completely with everyone else in her community. If a Twelve asked Jonas who she was and why they had never seen her, he'd reply that she was an Eleven. If an Eleven asked, he'd say she was a Twelve, and so fourth. Lying came mostly easily now for Jonas.

The girl stepped timidly out of the shadows of the surrounding bank of trees, as if she would be whisked away if she was seen by anyone else. "Yeah, you should have. And if you go now, I'm sure you'll be able to catch up with her."

Slightly frustrated by Lorelei's insistence, he realized that maybe she didn't understand the deeper meaning of his rejection of Fiona's invitation. "What good does it do to ride beside a crystalline river on fresh green grass with someone as beautiful as Fiona when she doesn't even realize it?"

Lorelei raised an eyebrow at the boy, "That's the point. You know it and she doesn't. Can't you try to make her realize what everything looks like?" And after a moment's hesitation, she added, "…And what she looks like?"

Jonas hadn't picked up on the pause between her statements. "No, not on her. But I've tried with Asher and Lily- my sister, that is," He looked up at Lorelei to see of she comprehended all of it. A small nod confirmed his thoughts and he continued, "But they were unwilling to just sit still and let the memory come to them. It worked on Gabe, but not on anyone else."

Considering this for a moment, Lorelei asked suddenly, "Did you just call Fiona 'beautiful'?"

Jonas opened his mouth to say something, but closed it, feeling his face flush. "Yeah." He said shortly, veering his line of sight away from Lorelei.

She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "Do you… like her? In a more-than-just-friends kind of way?"

Jonas bit his lip, shrugging. His current position was uncomfortable. Not only did he feel weird answering questions from Lorelei about his relationship- or lack thereof- with Fiona, but his behind was going numb from sitting on a rock too long.

Lorelei squealed in a girlish way. "Oh Jonas has a cruuuush!" She sang, flashing a smile at him.

"Well. I think I might love her."

Lorelei stopped in her dancing-and-prancing and cast a side long glance at Jonas. The use of 'love' bothered her.

It wasn't that her community was built up around the precision of language, like Jonas's was. It wasn't that at all. Her community had few rules, and those had been quite vague. Their community had strived to be perfect with no regulations, letting the citizens do anything they wanted to, which ended up being the problem. But after spending a year in Jonas's community, it became obvious to her that having too many rules didn't qualify for a flawless community, either. Where she had lived, there were too many choices. Here, there weren't any.

But the use of such strong words in casual language seemed slightly awkward for her. Not because she had never heard it before- that was far from the case. It was just that terms like such were thrown around so carelessly before and the meaning was too deep for such an instance. Unless he really did love Fiona, of course.

That struck another thought. Testing her hypothesis, she took a seat beside Jonas on the grass (he had discovered that staying on a rock for too long of a time was not good for your rear end). She knew that Jonas knew the depth of a word like 'love,' since he had used it for all the appropriate reasons with the Giver in lessons before. So she asked again: "Do you really love Fiona?"

Taken by surprise, Jonas slowly thought about his answer. "Well. I know I have feelings for her. So far, all of my Stirrings have been about her-" He felt his face go scarlet again by this revelation to someone who he had known for only a few days. But he continued thinking out loud, "And I know I like her more than a friend. Plus, this feeling of 'like' is so strong. But it's a different kind of feeling that I feel for, say, the Giver. It's slightly confusing…" His voice trailed off, wondering why he was telling all this to Lorelei.

Lorelei nodded, understanding his train of thought. "No. I know exactly what you mean."

She thought it was a good thing that he felt himself giving off two kinds of love. Ever since her childhood, Lorelei had been deprived of the family kin Jonas referred to. But, of course, she had always been free to love anyone she wanted to out of her family, like what Jonas supposedly felt for Fiona. Lorelei was also glad that Jonas knew what it felt like to be loved by family- or the closest thing he had to family, anyway, since his parents weren't as close to Jonas as the Giver was. But Fiona? Lorelei knew that she had no emotions. It wasn't technically the redhead's fault, since she had grown up in a community without color and feeling. But she was sad that Jonas could very well never feel the same emotions from Fiona that he was feeling towards Fiona. And Lorelei knew very well how it felt to be loved by someone who wasn't related to you. Quite frankly, she liked it. And something inside of her told her that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to show Jonas what it felt like to be loved.

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**AN:** I'm still having trouble getting the chapters to my standard of 'good,' and obviously to yours, too, since I'm up to 4 chapters in about 2 or 3 weeks and I don't have one single review -tear-. Just figured out how to make the lines of division, so now my disclaimers (as short as they are) won't seem like they're part of the story. xD Reviewing would make me worship at your feet. Kind of. :P 


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